Reconnection
by Antenna
Summary: Buffy is back from the dead, but something is wrong. Giles takes steps. But what trouble has Willow gotten herself into? GilesBuffy.
1. Chapter 1

"Tell me again what this is about?" Buffy stood in the middle of REI, with a pair of hiking boots laced on her feet and an internal-frame backpack strapped on her back. Giles and the sales clerk were examining the pack critically, periodically tugging at things she couldn't see. Giles' warm hand rested for a moment on the back of her neck while he pulled at a fastener. Then he took his hand away and stepped back. Buffy shuddered.

"We're going on a bit of a ramble," Giles said, absently. "I think this will do nicely."

The clerk agreed. He unsnapped things and gently lifted the straps from Buffy's shoulders. She allowed him to remove the pack, then sat to unlace the boots. The clerk was cute, in a shaggy granola way, and he'd been trying to catch her eye. Buffy didn't have the energy for it. The clerk added the pack and the boot box to the impressive stack of gear Giles had selected over the last couple of hours.

"Now let's get you some practical clothes," Giles said to her. "Something you can hike in. And something warm."

"Aren't you spending kind of a lot of money?" Buffy asked.

"Council credit card," Giles said, flashing her a little smile. Once upon a time that would have set Buffy's pulse racing: somebody else's credit card! Free rein! Now, however, she just nodded, and let him pick out clothes for her. Her closets had been emptier than she remembered them being, when she came back. If her memories were right. Buffy couldn't trust things like memory any more.

It was too loud and too bright in the store, and they'd been there a long time. Giles sat her down on the bench outside with a Tiger's Milk bar while the clerk rang him up. It was more calories than Buffy wanted, but it was sweet. It actually tasted like something. She ate the whole thing.

"Tell me again, Giles?" Buffy said, again, this time from her perch on a kitchen stool. Giles was busy at the stove, tending a pot and a saucepan. Willow was seated at the kitchen island as well, with a textbook. Buffy avoided looking at Willow.

"We're going hiking for a few days." Giles turned off the gas under the pot. He had a bunch of plastic baggies set out on the counter, the heavy-duty kind. He'd taken her grocery shopping as well, on the way home from REI.

"Where are we going, exactly?"

"To a place of power in Sequoia National Park."

Giles set a bowl of stew in front of her, a spoon already stuck in it. "Why?" said Buffy. She picked up the spoon and poked at a carrot.

"To perform a ritual." Giles had said this the last time she asked. Buffy couldn't figure out why. The carrot tasted like something, and so did the potato she tried next. They reminded her of something she'd known once, before.

"Oooh!" said Willow. "Sound neat. Need some help from a powerful Wicca? Since you're not so much with the casting on your own."

"No thank you, Willow, we will not be requiring your help. It is a strictly Watcher/Slayer ritual." Buffy heard in his voice a touch of the anger she'd heard last night, when he and Willow had laid into each other in the kitchen. While she'd been on the deck with Spike. No simmering threats this time, though, from either one of them. Just the insult and the rebuff and then the silence.

Buffy still wanted to know why, but she wasn't going to ask it in front of Willow. She wasn't so good with picking up what was going on with Giles any more, but anybody could see that he wasn't going to talk in front of Willow. Buffy held onto the question and watched Giles measure out stew into the baggies and carefully zip them shut. Then he put them in the freezer. She had another spoonful. It was pretty good.

When Dawn appeared, Giles greeted her with a hug and set a bowl in front of her. He studiously ignored Willow, who just as studiously did not ask for any stew. Serious badness brewing there. Buffy shrank into herself.

In the living room, a little later, Buffy watched Giles assemble the tent. He'd pushed aside the coffee table to make room for it. One tent. Room for two people. Giles put it together methodically. Then he took it apart, and did it again. He made a satisfied sound, then disassembled it a second time. He packed it away into a bag that was smaller than Buffy would have expected.

Then he started fitting items into the backpacks. He seemed to have a plan for everything. Tent, sleeping bags, cooking gear, clothes, rope, lights, and an assortment of tools. All new. Buffy remembered seeing some of this stuff when he'd gone on that Watcher retreat, but it had all been older gear. Probably Giles had taken it back with him to England when he'd gone home. Where he'd probably be going again soon.

"Try this," he said to Buffy. He held up her loaded pack for her. The weight was nothing, of course. Buffy could have carried ten times that. Especially because it was so well-balanced. She smiled for a moment at Giles and bent her knees a little. He adjusted some of the straps.

"Right then," he said. "All packed except for the food and water. We'll stop at the Magic Box tomorrow morning to get the dried herbs for the ritual," he told Buffy, exactly as if she knew what was going on.

He set the two packs in the hall, by the front door, along with their boots. He then led her upstairs. "Bedtime," he said. "We have an early start."

"But patrol--" Buffy began.

"Spike can do it," Giles said. "To bed with you." Buffy didn't like sleeping, not as such, just then. She'd been looking forward to going out and finding something to fight. Something that hit back. She felt that. Felt the skin of her knuckles when they hit vamp-teeth and ripped open. The rest of this living stuff was not so much fun. Too bright, too loud, too harsh, and at the same time too far away. But it didn't matter much. If Giles was going to call the shots for a while, Buffy would go along with it. She brushed her teeth and changed for bed.

When she'd shut her light off, her door opened and Giles came in, wearing pajamas, with a pillow and a blanket clutched to his chest. Buffy worked up to a "Hey!"

"Just avoiding a repeat of last night," Giles said.

"Oh. Yeah. Okay." Buffy pulled the covers up to her chin and resigned herself. She'd had a nightmare and it hadn't been too good. Giles had talked her down, then rocked her back to sleep. Buffy had woken up in the morning to find Giles sitting in the chair next to her bed, watching her with a strange expression on his face. He'd started this project right away, dragging her out shopping for all the outdoorsy stuff. He'd been on the phone to England, too, in a tense and grim series of conversations with different people.

He bunked down on the floor next to her bed. Though that had to really bug his back. That was the last thought Buffy had before morning, when Giles was brushing her awake, one warm hand gentle on her shoulder. It was barely light out. They ate breakfast quietly. The house was still asleep.

Buffy balked on the way out the door. "But Dawn--"

"I talked with Tara about Dawn last night," said Giles. "She'll be fine." He escorted her out the door. It shut behind her with a quiet click. Buffy followed Giles obediently to the drive, where his rental car was.

First stop was the Magic Box. Anya was there, which surprised Buffy.

"Thank you for opening so early for us, Anya," Giles said. "I think it'll be worth your while." He gave Anya the Council credit card and a conspiratorial grin. Anya grinned back. Buffy felt a little left out. She drifted over to the tarot table and zoned while Giles put together a bunch of ingredients in little baggies. And he got a funny chunk of crystal on a chain from the glass case where they kept the really expensive stuff. Anya looked at Giles, looked at Buffy, and said, "Oh." Then she got busy with the cash register, and gave Giles a receipt in duplicate, and they grinned at each other again when she ran the Council AmEx through the machine.

Before they left, Giles gave Anya an envelope. "Our route plan," he said. "Keep this to yourself unless we're late by more than two days. We'll be back on Thursday. Don't tell Willow what we took." Anya nodded to him, then solemnly hid the envelope away. Buffy wondered what was up with that. She'd always thought Willow was Giles' favorite, and now it was all insults and bitten-off yelling.

They drove north up the 101 and were quickly in territory Buffy had never traveled before. Had never hoped to travel. Town names she'd heard of, as pretty places to visit. Places the Slayer was never going to get to see. Places the Slayer wasn't seeing now, really, except as scenery going by outside the windows of Giles' rented car. Fog along the Pacific, outside Giles' window. Cliffs and sea.

At Paso Robles, they turned onto an even smaller state route, and went up over the coastal range, heading inland, to a part of California Buffy knew nothing of. She'd lived there all her life, and hadn't ventured more than a hundred miles from LA, in any direction. Recently, well okay, before Glory, she'd stopped hoping to go more than twenty miles out of Sunnydale. And here she was, just a week out of the grave, speeding north with Giles. Who was going to show her a lot of trees.

Buffy thought about sleeping. Giles didn't seem inclined to talk much, and the radio couldn't pick up anything she felt like listening to for more than five seconds. Sometimes Giles would ask her what she thought of the view. Buffy would just shrug. She started thinking about all the things she wanted to have done in her life, that she didn't get to do before she died. She'd never be able to do any of them. She tried not to make any noise, but eventually she had to blow her nose and Giles noticed. He handed her a handkerchief, prepared as always. Giles, the never-changing rock. Giles, in a tweed jacket and a sweater vest, nudging up his glasses and always producing a handkerchief.

"Buffy, have you ever heard of a man named Ram Dass?"

"Huh?" Buffy swiped at her nose some more.

"He was a bit of a hippie guru. He was originally-- uh, never mind that. He had a bit of advice that he was famous for. It's, uh. Be here now."

"What?"

"Be here now."

"Be here now," Buffy repeated.

"Yes."

"I don't know what that means."

"A, a number of things. But mainly, for you, today... be where you are, in this moment, enjoying what is with you right now. Don't spend too much time thinking about what has been."

"That doesn't seem do-able. How can I just... never mind."

They stopped near the interstate for some lunch, in the middle of total ag country, in a place with the weirdest name Buffy had ever seen. Giles sighed and bought her fast food. Buffy ate fries, dipped in sugary ketchup. They didn't taste like anything. Giles poked at his burger, then pulled one of those food bars from his coat pocket and ate that instead.

Giles bought gas, then got them back on the road, still heading inland through farmland, and then up and into the trees again. Away from civilization. Buffy zoned out. Be somewhere else now. Dreamland. It wasn't a nice dreamland she was in, but it wasn't noisy or harsh or glaring.

She came to a couple hours later, when Giles stopped the car. They were at a ranger station. Giles went inside for a while, and came out with some forms filled out. He taped some things to the inside of the windshield. Then they drove off again. Up and up. A long winding road to nowhere. To trees and more trees. Eventually he parked, and said to her, "We're here."

Buffy got out and shook herself awake again, though she wasn't sure she wanted to be. It was cool and sunny at the same time. The air felt unfamiliar. It smelled strange. It was also way quiet.

Giles was pulling the packs out of the back seat. He took off his regular shoes and put on his hiking boots. Buffy imitated him.

"Ah, right, hang on a tick," he said. He then cast a spell on her boots, and flashed her that little smile again. "Let's avoid the blisters, shall we?" Giles had never been so casual with the magic before. Buffy wondered if it was jealousy about Willow, like she'd said, or something else.

Giles shut up the car. He helped her on with her pack, then settled his own on his shoulders. He paused a moment at the trailhead, to roll his shoulders and stomp his feet down in his boots. He took a very deep breath, then smiled at her. This one wasn't the tight fast smile he'd been giving over the last two days. It was more like a happy Giles expression, and the echoes stayed around on his face.

"Deep breath," said Giles. Buffy breathed obediently. "What do you smell?"

"Trees," said Buffy uncertainly.

"Exactly," said Giles. "Let's go." He strode off, not looking to see if she followed. Buffy trudged after him, up the trail. She caught up in a moment, pressing on a bit of Slayer speed. Giles was walking steadily, not fast, but with the kind of pace you could keep up for ages and ages. The trail went up. The only sounds were their feet, cushioned by pine needles.

Buffy remembered the questions she'd been holding onto for the last two days.

"So, now that Willow isn't around," she began. "Assuming she isn't. Cause you seemed kinda jumpy about that."

"We are protected against Willow eavesdropping," said Giles, a little ominously.

"What are we doing here?"

"We are going to a place of power, where we will perform a ritual for the two of us."

"Why did we come here? Aren't there, like, places of power closer to Sunnydale?"

"Yes, but getting away from there was part of the goal. Also, this place is both powerful and sacred."

"Have you been here before?"

"No," he said. "I have, however, studied maps."

"Are you sure you know how to do this camping stuff?" Buffy was a little suspicious.

Giles laughed for a moment, silently. Buffy remembered that laugh. It made her feel a little better, inside. "I've had thorough Council training," he said, "in wilderness survival. Three nights of camping in a national park will be quite tame in comparison."

"Three nights. Oh."

They walked for a while. Giles didn't seem to be having trouble with the altitude or the way the trail was heading up. He must have stayed in shape while she wasn't there. Buffy wasn't noticing the walk, herself. She thought she remembered that she had been in amazing shape, the best shape of her life, right before. Right before waking up dead.

"What's this ritual thing?" she asked him, after they'd gone maybe a mile.

"I'll explain it in detail tonight. But it's to do with my being your Watcher."

"What if I don't want to do it?"

Giles walked steadily along the trail for a while. At last he said, "Then we will spend a few quiet days in a lovely national park, looking at sequoias."

Buffy thought maybe she'd hurt him, a little bit, with that question. So she tried to make up for it by asking him about things she didn't really care about. Like what that noisy blue bird with the black head was, and what animals lived around here. Marmots sounded kinda cute, but she could do without the bears.

"But what about these sequoias we're supposed to be seeing?" said Buffy.

He stopped her to point out a cluster of trees. Buffy wasn't sure what the deal was. It was kinda redwoody. Buffy had seen those, of course. Anybody who lived on the California coast had seen a redwood. He led her up to them. Now that she was up close, she thought she could see differences. The bark was a different color, maybe.

"They need fire to sprout," Giles said. "Forest fires heat the cones and release the seeds. And the fires clear out debris. For years the forest service suppressed fire, thinking they'd protect the trees that way. But really these trees can't be harmed by ordinary brush fires."

Buffy ran a hand over the bark. She craned her head back and looked up. Yeah, giant was the word. Okay, she'd seen sequoias now. She looked around herself. Probably she'd seen hundreds, all day, but she hadn't known what she'd been looking at. She didn't know why, but she leaned forward and wrapped her arms around the tree as far as they would go. Which wasn't very far around. She tried to sense something, anything, special. But it was just a tree. It smelled nice, she guessed.

They set off again. After ages of walking, but while the sun was still up, they reached their campsite. There was an outhouse-y pit thing, which was yucky but Buffy used it anyway, because what choice did she have? When she came out again, Giles had the tent up in one of the spots, not so far from a place where people had obviously built fires. Giles sent her off to gather fallen wood while he set things up. When she came back, with a big armful of branches, he had the little stove going. A blue flame hissed under the panful of stew.

They ate dinner in the fading light, Buffy from a bowl and Giles from the pan, with funny flat spoons. Buffy ate more than she usually let herself eat. It tasted kinda good. Giles boiled water and had her make cocoa from packets while he cleaned everything up and then lit a fire.

Giles took all the food, even the food bars Buffy had stashed in her fleece pocket, and put it into a canister. He put that inside one of the metal containers that Buffy had thought were dumpsters, or something. "Our packs will go in here, too," he said. "Just before we go to sleep."

"Why?"

"Bears," he said. "They can't get inside those containers."

He went over to the fire and sat with his knees pulled up under his chin. Buffy sat close to him, on the pine needley ground. She watched the fire burn for a while. Fire got through the layers of plastic wrapped around her, sometimes. She imagined reaching in and grabbing a log. It would hurt, for a while. Then her Slayer healing would fix it, and it would be as if it hadn't happened. But she didn't. The fire wouldn't change her, wouldn't release anything.

Giles shifted and stretched out his legs.

"What's this ritual?" Buffy asked, for what felt like the millionth time. He'd promised to answer this time, though. When he answered, he hesitated a lot. Not stammering, exactly. Just as if he were being very careful about how he said things.

"It's about my guardianship of you. It needs to be renewed, after... after your resurrection. When I was made your Watcher, back before I met you, I was given a little bit of your soul, to guard. It was... taken from me, when you went... where you went."

"Oh." Buffy thought about this. She thought that maybe there was a problem with his plan, but she'd wait a bit before bringing it up. "What does that do?"

"Many things," said Giles. "Slayers are exposed to many dangers, not just physical ones. Spiritual dangers. They can lose their humanity, their connection with the life they are charged to protect. My duty is to prevent that. One of my duties."

That was pretty wild, and mystical, and all that. Buffy wondered why Giles had never explained it before, then figured she knew the answer to that. She'd never put up with any lecture about mystical stuff that lasted more than thirty seconds. Buffy had been pretty idiotic, while she'd been alive.

"I did it the first time before I'd even met you," Giles was saying. "It's stronger when the Slayer participates, though. I'll be able to guard you more closely. If you consent, that is."

Time to bring up the big hitch.

"Giles?" she said. "Do I have a soul to guard?"

"Yes, Buffy," he said, very gently. "You have a soul."

Buffy scuffled at the dirt with a toe. "I thought maybe I'd come back without one. Wrong. Because of how I feel."

"You came back fine," Giles said. "That spell..."

"It sounded kinda dark. With the snakes, and stuff."

"Very dark magic," he said. "There was a reason Willow waited until I'd gone. And there will be a price to pay for it." He looked grim for a moment, then shuttered it away. "But it was also powerful magic, and she made her bargain with the right god. So you are truly here. Completely. With a soul."

"If you say so," Buffy said, doubtfully. She had a thought, and spoke it before she'd thought it a second time.

"Giles, if the spell hadn't been so evil, would you have helped them? If you'd been here?"

Giles looked down. "No. No, I wouldn't have. I missed you more than I can say. My heart was... But no. I couldn't have done such a thing to you."

"Weren't you worried about me being in a hell dimension?"

"No," he said, so softly she had to strain to hear him. "Slayers don't go to hell when they die, Buffy. The Powers know what sacrifices they... you, made."

"Oh," she said. Her big secret wasn't so much a secret with Giles.

"I'm sorry you have to sacrifice even more, Buffy. Not sorry you're here with me now, but sorry about what brought you here. To have you here, with me again, I... the summer was... Um."

"Be here now?" Buffy said.

Giles made a funny laugh. "Yes, thank you. Good advice." He took off his glasses and gave them a good wipe on his fleecy shirt.

Buffy shifted around and got closer to the fire. It wasn't exactly cold out, but the air had an edge.

"So, tell me about this ritual thing. What does that rock have to do with it?"

"It's a... well, a window. To the soul. We'll use it to help the transfer."

"A window?"

"Let me show you," he said. His voice reminded her of being in the library, with an eager young Giles pulling out a new weapon to teach her. This burnt Giles, with the lines in his face and the scars on his fingers, reached inside his shirt to pull out the crystal he'd taken from the Magic Box that morning. He lifted the chain over his head and held the stone in his hands. He repeated a phrase in a language Buffy couldn't recognize, slowly, three times.

It began to glow a rich green that streamed through his fingers and warmed everything around them.

"The last time I looked into a stone like this, I could see your soul there with mine. A spark, right at the heart. When we do the ritual tomorrow night, I'll be able to see you again, and feel you there." Giles held the crystal cupped in his hands, gazing in. "I miss feeling you. I didn't realize it, at first, what was missing. Why I didn't believe that Willow had raised you. Why when I touched you I felt hollow. It's because we aren't connected any more."

"Can I look?"

Giles extended his cupped hands to her. Buffy looked into the stone, and saw Giles. Green. His eyes. Plants, growing in pots in the library office. The jasmine along the wall outside his flat. The glowing glass of his dragonfly lamp. Dried leaves in a bowl, smelling of sage. The soft black wool of the afghan thrown across his leather couch. A teapot, pouring into a great cup until it overflowed. Cookies on a plate. Paper and ink and a fountain pen. The sound of a man's voice singing. Smoke and guitar strings and a wooden stake that had budded and flowered.

Buffy gasped and pulled back. Giles was smiling at her. "An odd experience, isn't it?"

"Wild," Buffy said. "That was... you. All kinds of you. Concentrated Giles."

Giles hummed in assent.

"This works for anybody?"

"Would you like to see yourself?"

Giles waved his fingers over the stone, a sharp gesture of finality. The glow faded. "Here," he said. Buffy cupped her hands, as he had, and received the crystal from him. He repeated the words to her. She said them tentatively, three times, still afraid of what she'd see. Or not see. What if it didn't...

But it was glowing for her. It was a different color. It was an orangey yellow, hot, intense, like the sun in the early morning. Buffy looked in, and almost didn't recognize herself. Coals, molten metal, poured into a mold. A staff in her hands. A shout of joy at the oncoming battle. A sword, ringing as it was drawn. Dancing at the Bronze. A cup of mocha, with whipped cream. Mr Gordo. Creamy white lace. A daisy. Light on water. Her arms around her friends, fierce and possessive and protective. A wooden stake, newly sharpened.

"I have a soul," she said, in wonder. Then she burst into tears and dropped the crystal. Giles had an arm around her and was rocking her again, saying soothing things to her that she couldn't understand. He picked up the crystal, then her, and carried them both to the tent. He helped her take her boots off, then climb into the sleeping bag. He blew her nose. He held her for a long time and gradually she felt better.

Buffy woke trembling. Noises outside the tent. Shuffling, grumbling. Demon? She tried that honing thing, but couldn't sense anything dangerous.

"Bears," said Giles, from inches away, in the other sleeping bag. Buffy shivered. "You can handle them if you need to, but you won't need to." He kissed her forehead, soothingly, the way she'd seen him kiss Dawn's forehead when he'd first appeared in the Magic Box. The bears shuffled around, banging something. Buffy wriggled her sleeping bag closer to Giles'.

After a while it stopped. She was certain she'd never get back to sleep again. But the next thing she knew, it was morning, and the walls of the tent were bright. Giles wasn't in the tent, and his sleeping bag was already rolled up. But she could hear him moving just outside, and hear the hiss of the fuel stove. After she'd made another trip to the yuck-place, he fed her bland oatmeal and really awful coffee. Buffy realized that she'd started tasting stuff enough to dislike it. That was an improvement. Or maybe not, she thought, wrinkling her nose. She drank the coffee anyway.

She helped Giles strike the tent. She wasn't sure what "strike" meant, when you were talking about tents, but that was the jargon and she was sticking to it.

Giles didn't seem to be particularly in a hurry, but there wasn't much to do to clean up. They were walking up the trail again in no time. Buffy realized she had no idea what time it was when they got going. It didn't matter. Sunrise, sunset, walking in the daylight: that was all that mattered.

The pack was lighter today. Less water in it, she realized. Giles had given it all to her, and said that if he was going to take a tenderfoot Slayer hiking, he might as well have her carry all the heavy stuff. Giles was slower today than he'd been yesterday, however. Buffy didn't mind. This was starting to feel almost okay.

They didn't talk much that morning, but it was a comforting quiet. Buffy had thinking to do, about what it meant that she had a soul but still felt like she was dead. The possibility that she didn't have to feel that way had occurred to her.

They stopped on a rock with a view to eat lunch. Buffy was hungrier than she'd been in ages. Hungrier than even that time she'd decided she had to lose five pounds before the junior prom. Giles gave her a couple of thick slices of wheat bread and big chunks of cheddar. Buffy slapped them together and chewed. Giles had his own handful of bread and cheese. They ate apples as they set off again. Giles took her core from her and tucked it away in a bag.

Later in the afternoon, she had to ask Giles what she was supposed to do if she had to go out there in the woods, which was ultra-humiliating. But he just explained it carefully, exactly as if she'd asked how to use a pike.

They had climbed pretty high by late afternoon. Giles stopped them by an oddly shaped rock. He consulted his topo map and his GPS-- go technology guy!-- and announced that this was the landmark. They left the main trail. In a minute Giles had found a faint track, heading off. He made a noise of satisfaction. Just half an hour of walking brought them to an flat stretch of granite, with a pillar at its center. In front of the pillar was a shallow depression in the rock, where many fires had burned. It overlooked a valley far below. Buffy hadn't realized how far up they'd climbed.

They advanced onto the rock and stopped. The hair on the back of Buffy's neck stood on end. "Oh," she said. "Wow. So this is a place of power."

"Indeed," said Giles. He had his eyes closed and his hands raised, fingers spread. "Goodness." He opened his eyes again and blinked.

"People come here, still," Buffy said, looking at the fire pit.

"Vision quests," Giles said. "This place brings visions. It's one reason I brought us here."

"Will we have one?"

"Perhaps. I hope so."

They found a place for the tent, not so far away, and got everything set up. Giles fed her more stew. If Buffy had been any less hungry, she might have started to get bored with it.

Giles repeated the trick with the food in the canister again. This time he tied a rope to it. Then he tossed the rope over a tree branch, and pulled until the can was high in the air. He hitched the rope to a second tree.

"Okay," said Buffy, "I give up. Why are you hanging our food up?"

"Bears again," said Giles. "The canister is supposedly bear-proof, but I'm old-fashioned. I like to hang it."

Buffy had a moment of imagining bears playing tether-ball with their food.

They both gathered wood this time, enough for a larger fire. Giles set it all up. They sat together and watched the sunset. Giles explained the ritual to Buffy, helping her memorize her part. Which wasn't that bad. Just a phrase in Latin. There was herb-burning, and a chant Giles had to do to awaken their souls and excite the crystal. Then he would swear an oath to guard her, still in Latin, and that was it. She'd be guarded again. And Giles would feel like he was her Watcher again.

Giles lit the fire after sundown, when it had gone fully dark. He lit it with magic this time, standing over it and speaking a single word in a commanding tone. He made them sit downwind, where the smoke from the fire blew over them. He mixed the herbs from the baggies and threw them onto the fire in big fistfuls. They smelled odd, acrid. Buffy's head went a little swimmy.

Giles sat down behind her, his long legs stretched out. "Lean against me when you need to," he said. He took out the crystal and they held it together. He began chanting. The crystal glowed green, like it had last night. She repeated the words he'd taught her, earlier. She said them again, together with Giles. He swore the oath to her, his voice all solemn and choked up. And as he finished, a yellow-orange spark appeared in the center of the soul crystal. Buffy felt weird. Not bad-weird, just strange. Warm. Like somebody had her cupped in his hand.

She recognized that feeling. She'd had it all the time before, when she'd bothered to pay attention. Sitting on the study table kicking her heels. Drinking tea seated on that leather sofa. Stretching on the mats in the back of the Magic Box. She sighed and breathed in deep, and got a good lungful of herb-smoke. Now she felt really weird, and not entirely good. Queasy. She leaned back on Giles for a moment.

Time stopped. Buffy was somewhere else. No smells, no sound, no feeling, just a diffuse white light. It was familiar, but she couldn't say from where. Vision quest, she guessed.

"So, kid. We meet again." The funny little guy with the hat, who'd told her how to close the portal, had appeared from somewhere. What was his name? Oh, yeah. "The big guy upstairs has a couple of things he wanted me to say to you."

"Big guy?"

"Yeah, you know. Him." Whistler fidgeted with his hat.

"Oof," said Buffy.

"You ain't kiddin'. So the deal is this. You got ripped out unfairly. You probably figured that out. That little witch, whew, she really did a number on you. You were supposed to be done with it, gone on to your whatsit, your reward. You can either be done with it again, or you can stick around because He has some stuff for you to do. Some stuff you were supposed to do before, maybe, but you didn't get around to. You get to pick which, because He thinks you did pretty well and deserve to have a say this time."

"I could go back?" To peace, rest, and maybe another talk with her mom.

"Yeah, right now."

"Die again?"

"That'd kinda be required, yeah."

"But Giles..." Buffy didn't like thinking about what it would feel like for Giles, to have her soul taken away from his guardianship again.

"We'd make it easy on him," Whistler said. "He wouldn't know you chose to leave him. We'd fix it so it looked natural."

Buffy thought about the sequoia trees, which she'd seen yesterday for the first time. And bears, which had been only a few feet away, leaving tracks. And the hawk Giles had pointed out. And marmots, which she hadn't seen yet. And Dawn, waiting for her back in Sunnydale. And Giles, who was right behind her this moment, though she couldn't feel him. The hardest thing in this world is to live in it. But sometimes it wasn't hard. Sometimes it wasn't a burden. Sometimes it was endless joy.

"I'm staying," she said. "Tell me what I have to do."

"Good on ya, kid," said Whistler. "It's gonna be okay. I think you'll like this gig. Lots better than the Slaying."

Whistler was gone, and time moved again, and Buffy was aware of being outside, on the rock near the fire, with the smell of the burning herbs in her nose. Her head spun again, and time went funny in a different way. Giles clutched at her shoulders and gasped. Buffy knew he was going with her this time.

It was like memory, only it hadn't happened yet. Giles laughing against her neck, his weight on her, his body moving inside hers. Buffy lying on a sofa, her head in his lap, his hand clasped in hers against her belly. Fighting vampires, side by side. Glimpses of the others, of Xander and Anya and Dawn and Tara. A garden in mid-summer, drowsy and hot. Giles again, skin to skin with her, whispering in her ear. Then a blinding moment of the two of them, together on a bed, a newborn held to her breast.

It ended. Buffy was on her back, on top of Giles, who was flat out on the rock. Buffy sat up slowly. Her head still felt weird, spinning, like she was drunk or worse. Giles groaned and sat up behind her, his legs still stretched around hers.

"My God," he said.

"Yeah, you can say that again." Buffy inhaled, deeply, and let it out again. Her breath plumed out in front of her. Cool night air. Pine, wood smoke, the bitterness of the herbs they'd burned underneath it. It was the best thing she'd ever smelled, that night air. The rock was cold under her butt, Giles hot against her back, her skin warm where it faced the fire. She reached down and stroked her fingers against the rock. It felt almost alive. Rough, solid, present. Little tracers of fire ran on the rock, where her fingers pressed on it. Everything in the world was connected to everything else, and it was all alive.

"Be here now," she said to Giles.

"Are you?"

"Yeah, I am." And so was he. And Buffy had just been smacked upside the head with the reason why she was here, now. And why she was back. And the knowledge that it wasn't going to be bad, this time. It wasn't going to end in a swan-dive into a coffin six feet under. "Did you get what I got, in the vision?"

Giles' voice sounded cautious, behind her. "Perhaps. I... Did it end with us, holding..."

"Holding a baby? Yeah. We're gonna be parents." Buffy's worldview was shifting around, like tectonic plates shoving up mountains in mega-time-lapse. Giles: not tweedy Watcher guy any more. Giles: a guy, a man, who could hold her like that and make her feel like that. A guy who was supposed to do those things. It had never occurred to Buffy before, but now it felt all kinds of right. That was who Giles was supposed to be for her. Had been supposed to be all along, only she'd gotten distracted. Vampires. She'd been obsessed with the dead.

He slowly slid his hands around her and let them come to rest on her thighs. Buffy laid her hands on them and insinuated her fingers between his. His hands were alive. Strong. Potent. Buffy thought about all the connotations of that word. Giles, potent. Giles, alive and growing, with deep roots and a crown all the way in the stars. She wasn't sure what she was, but it was something just as alive.

Buffy wanted to move. She jumped up and did a handstand, walked on her hands for a few steps, then flipped over to her feet. She spun and grinned at Giles. He was still sprawled on his ass on the rock, but laughing like an idiot up at her. He held up his hands, and she yanked him up. He wrapped his arms around her and spun her around a few times. Then he pulled her up and kissed her, and things slowed down again. Buffy let herself sink into that kiss. It started gentle and grew into a huge breath-stealing blood-pounding thing, all clumsy and desperate, until Buffy started crying again. Giles looked worried, at first, but she shook her head at him and smiled and tried to tell him it was all okay. He released her.

She walked to the edge of the circle of firelight, and looked up at the stars while Giles did something to the fire that made it die down. The little traceries of light ran around up there too, connecting everything. Blue and red and green. The stars wheeled over Buffy, who looked up in awe.

Giles came behind her and put his hands on her hips and snugged himself up.

"You know what all these stars are, don't you."

Buffy felt him laugh, against her back. "A few of them. The famous ones."

"Ssh. You know everything right now. You know all the secrets."

They walked the short distance back to the tent, holding hands. No bears. They crawled in. Buffy took her boots off outside, like Giles had shown her. She zipped the tent shut, shivering a little bit. It was cold up here, and the inside of the tent wasn't any better. Giles was already undressing, stripping to t-shirt and underwear. Buffy snuck a peek. He had a nice body, hidden under all those clothes. Pretty soon she'd be seeing and feeling all of it. He kept the crystal around his neck, and it glowed a little, still. It was the center of more of those radiating patterns, those complex webs of blue and red. Buffy watched them grow and spin for a minute. But it was all fading now.

Buffy undressed fast, while Giles was looking away and folding up his hiking pants. He had zipped the sleeping bags together into one large one. Buffy hadn't known you could do that. He slipped in and held the bag open for her. "Come on, then," he said. Buffy slid in next to him, a little shy to be so close to Giles and wearing so little. But it was Giles, who smelled good and felt good and who held a little bit of her soul in his guard. She rubbed her face against his neck.

Giles zipped up the sleeping bags, bundling her up close. He turned her around and pulled her back against his chest, wrapping himself around her in every way possible. Buffy felt the last tension leave her shoulders. She rested her head on his arm.

"Aren't we gonna..."

"Not just yet," Giles murmured. "No need to go too fast." He brushed his lips against the back of her neck and Buffy shivered. A good shiver. An anticipation-shiver, fizzing in her blood. She took his hand, where it was spread across her belly, and pressed it tight.


	2. Chapter 2

There were rocks underneath Buffy's sleeping bag. Definitely rocks. But there was also a warm body next to her, with his arm draped over her middle and his face nuzzled into her shoulder. Giles, um, Rupert, maybe, now, was grizzling. Not a full-fledged snore, just a sort of light grumble thing. It was adorable.

Buffy didn't want to get up, but she had to pee. Maybe she could climb back in next to Rupert when she got back. But when she did, he was awake, and smiling at her. He pulled her down for a kiss. "Morning breath," she told him. "And mega-stubble." And sweat, and a soot-smudge across his forehead from the campfire. She kissed him anyway. There was gray mixed in his stubble, and gray at his temples.

Buffy's feet were sore this morning, despite whatever it was Rupert had cast on her boots. A lot of walking, she guessed. Despite that, the hike back down the trail went a lot faster than the uphill trip. Buffy almost didn't want it to. She held Rupert's hand, and asked a lot of questions about the park, the animals, why they hadn't seen marmots yet, and where else Rupert had been in the area. By silent agreement, they stayed away from the big topics. Like what their shared vision had meant, how they were going to handle things at home, and what they were going to do about Rupert's fight with Willow.

They got to the trailhead in the mid-afternoon. Buffy wasn't quite ready to head home yet, and said as much to Rupert.

"Neither am I," he said, making that grim face for a moment. "I have a plan. If you'll allow me. I thought we might spend the night somewhere nice."

"You are forgiven," Buffy said, magisterially, "for making plans without me, when they are plans of such goodness. And shower-having-ness."

"Indeed."

The car engine was loud and unnatural after a couple of days of only forest sounds. It also smelled plasticky inside. Though pretty soon it also smelled like unwashed people and pine needles. Buffy wanted that shower.

Giles drove them down to the ranger station. This time Buffy got out of the car, mostly to use a real bathroom, with running water. And soap. She checked out the maps, and the posters about wildlife, and the informative pamphlets on how to not feed the bears. Then she had a burbly conversation with the park service guy about exactly where she should go next time if she wanted to see marmots. Giles, looking scrubbed and damp around the ears himself, was using the payphone to set something up. He smiled at her when he was done, with a secret look that gave Buffy a thrill in her chest.

They drove back the way they'd came. Giles was heavier with the foot this time, over the speed limit. This time Buffy paid attention. So this was the San Joaquin Valley, where all the food came from. Flat. Way flat. All the roads were straight lines. It got curvy again in the hills. Up and over. On the other side was the fog that Buffy was used to. Redwoods and fog.

At the highway, Giles turned north. "Going to Cambria," he said. "I got us a room at a bed and breakfast for tonight." He gave her a shy smile, and took her hand for a moment.

"Oooh!" That meant a night in a real bed with Gi-- Rupert, away from the gang. Buffy let herself speculate about what that was going to be like. She turned away from the scenery and watched him drive for a while. The thought of the night to come gave her that thrill again.

Rupert got them off the highway in a cute little town, and muttered to himself as he navigated little streets. He stopped them at a Safeway.

"Wait here," he said. "I need a razor a-a-and some shaving cream." He flicked at his stubble by way of explanation. He ran in before Buffy could demand he bring back chocolate. He came back with a plastic bag of stuff and a guilty expression. He tucked the bag into the back seat and started the car. Buffy dove for the bag, of course, and inventoried it. A can of shaving cream, a pack of three disposable razors, and--

"Condoms? Somebody's hoping to get lucky, I see."

"I, I thought it best to be prepared, in case... last night I thought perhaps... I know we haven't talked about it."

"I'm not saying you didn't think right, you boy scout."

Rupert made a sound in his throat.

"But hey! Aren't we supposed to get with the kid-having?" They'd have to talk about that vision some time.

"Not necessarily immediately."

"Don't you want to?"

"Of course! I just..." He was as stuttery as Buffy had ever heard him. "I had been thinking, well, that I should prefer it if, if, when we... It would be best for the child if its parents were... We should get married straight away, and then start with the..."

"Okay," said Buffy. "Let's get married and then have a kid, in that order." Rupert grabbed her hand and clutched hard. "This is really romantic!"

Rupert took his eyes off the road long enough to glare at her. "This was not how I had intended proposing to you," he said. "While driving on a busy street in the middle of..."

Buffy giggled at him.

"Bloody hell," he said. He let go of her hand suddenly. Buffy was about to complain, but he did some fancy braking and u-turning and stuck them decisively into a parking lot across the street, next to a big house with a sign announcing it was the Cambrian Inn. With a picture of a fossil. He hopped out of the car before Buffy could so much as eep, and had her door open. Buffy let him hand her out.

"Let's do this properly. Since we likely won't do anything else properly." He pulled her off the asphalt onto the grassy lawn, and went down on his knees. He took a deep breath. "Buffy, will you marry me?"

His voice when he said this was like his voice had been last night, when he swore the oath to her, serious and choked. It deserved an equally serious response, and Buffy pulled herself together and gave it to him. She met his eyes and said, "Yes, Rupert, I will marry you."

He closed his eyes for a moment. He took his signet ring off and slipped it onto her finger. It rattled around. "I'll get you something..." he said.

Buffy transferred the ring to her thumb, where it fit pretty well. She couldn't say anything, because she was crying again. Rupert leaned his cheek against her middle and held on silently for a few minutes.

Buffy was still sniffling when they went inside the inn to check in. The woman at the desk, who had a sweatshirt with a dinosaur on it stretched over her comfy cleavage, took one look at Buffy and handed her a box of tissues. "You okay, sweetie?" she said.

"He just asked me to marry him!" said Buffy, wiping her nose. "See?" She held up the hand with the ring.

That got them the extra-fussing treatment, which made Rupert's ears turn red, but also got them a room with a view down over the town and its own bathroom. Buffy zapped into the shower instantly. Water. Hot water. Huge amounts of hot water. Plus soap. Lack of planning bit her when she was done, though: she had to step back into the room with just a towel clutched tight around her. Rupert was stretched out on the bed with a paperback. He looked up, saw her, and blushed.

"I'll just... um, right." He vanished into the bathroom, with clothes and the shaving cream can in hand.

Buffy regretted having allowed Rupert to pack her clothes. She had nothing but practical hiking gear, all khaki and earth colors. Though that sage green shirt wasn't so bad, if she layered it over this brown tank top. And of course she had her makeup kit. No Summers woman would go anywhere without that. And it had a few emergency earrings in it, which would be much nicer than these ultra-practical studs she'd been wearing.

There were moments when Buffy felt the black thoughts trying to creep back in. Like right now, now that she was finished with the makeup and didn't have anything to do. She looked at Rupert's paperback. Some mystery thing, battered, obviously not a book maintained by Rupert Giles super-librarian. Aha. There was a shelf of mysteries and romances, next to the bed. Fallback plan. Instead Buffy tapped on the door of the bathroom, and opened it. Rupert was out of the shower and half-dressed. His face was all foamed up.

"Hullo," he said, with a little smile under the soap.

Buffy sat on the closed toilet and watched her man shave. It was a new experience. Buffy was into new experiences right now. Angel hadn't shaved; he'd waxed himself a century ago, then just declined to command the follicles to make more hair. Buffy had turned green and told him never to explain stuff like that ever again. Riley had used an electric razor. He'd used it on his chest, too. Buffy had caught him once. Probably that should have been a big hint.

Rupert methodically, slowly, carefully, shaved himself with the little blue disposable razor. He leaned close to the mirror, sometimes bracing himself with a hand on the sink. A stroke on his face, a swish in the hot water in the basin. He looked over at her every so often, but didn't say anything.

She'd never really had a sense of him as male, before. Obviously he was, hence Ms Calendar and Olivia and other people she wasn't going to think about with him, ever. But Buffy hadn't thought about him that way. He was advice and tea, training and comfort, conscience and confidant. But now, something else. Buffy considered Rupert.

He had on baggy jeans. Buffy could see the white band of his underwear, inside the too-loose waistline. He was thinner than he'd been, before. Bad summer, she supposed. He wasn't wearing a shirt. He had a little tawny hair, up on on his chest and around his nipples, and some on his stomach. He had muscle in his back and shoulders, and in his arms. Rupert hid it all under those suits and baggy shirts most of the time. He was so self-effacing, normally, that she hadn't really clued into what a tall guy he was. And he was most definitely a guy. It had been exciting to feel him pressed up against her last night, obviously interested, even if all they had done was kiss a little and then conk out.

He had a few scars. One of the worst ones, on his right forearm, Buffy had given him herself. Accident in sword practice, back in junior year. She'd baked cookies every day for a month to make up for that one. And then there was the place on his front where the spear had gone in. That was still pink-ish.

Handsome. He was handsome. He had a distinctive face, all angles and cheekbones and chin under the shaving cream. His hair was a little longer than she was used to seeing him with, curling over his ears and his neck. It had been soft under her fingers.

Gradually his face emerged from the foam. He washed it off, then inspected himself in the mirror.

"Big production," she told him.

"Didn't want to nick myself. Not tonight." He pulled on a blue t-shirt and tucked it in, then a black flannel shirt, leaving the tails out. "Have you given any thought to dinner?"

"Dinner! Whoops!" Buffy was back in horse-slaughter mood, now that she thought about it. She poinged out to the bedroom and grabbed the folder with the local places info. Giles followed, holding a pair of socks. He sat on the bed with her to look.

"We're gonna eat here," Buffy said, pointing. "Thai. Within walking distance."

"You're feeling yourself again," he grumbled. "Bossy." But the crinkling around his eyes told her how happy he was.

They walked to dinner. The downtown was a bit like Sunnydale's: weekend-resort-ish, with lots of traps for LA people. Galleries, shops with expensive kitschy junk, restaurants. No vampire vibe at _all_. Buffy liked it.

The restaurant was medium-busy. Buffy ordered her favorite noodle thing, with peanuts and prawns. Rupert got green curry. Buffy toed off her shoes and ran her feet up the ankles of his jeans as far as she could get them. Rupert gave her patented Giles-glare #3, the one that meant "I am supposed to disapprove, but secretly I am loving it". And shifted his legs so she could reach better.

He didn't eat much. Mostly he spent the meal looking at Buffy and smiling to himself. Buffy chattered.

"We have a lot of stuff to figure out," Buffy said, slowing down a bit. "Should probably talk about what we're going to do next."

"If you wish."

He looked strained and weary for a second before covering it up. Buffy became head-using girl. He'd zapped over from England then had to go immediately into take care of everything mode. He was probably thwacked. Buffy rubbed her toe over his calf and then said, "No, not tonight. Tonight is still vacation. Tomorrow we'll worry about visions and missions from God and all that stuff."

"Missions from God?"

"Oh, right. I had a chat with that little demon guy, Whistler. Before we had the shared thing. He said the Big Guy wanted it. I said I'd do it. So I'm on board."

"My goodness. I... Really?"

"Yeah." The other choice he'd given her, Buffy would never ever mention to anybody.

"There'll be prophecies, no doubt. We'll need to research..." Rupert trailed off in that absent reviewing-the-contents-of-his-shelves way. Buffy tickled him with a toe and he refocused on her with a start. "Pardon."

"No research tonight. Just engagement celebration."

Rupert's face lit in that rare full-on grin. He caught the waiter's eye and made a quick writing-on-his-hand gesture.

Back in the room, standing in the bathroom with a toothbrush, Buffy found herself getting nervous. She had no nice things to wear! Nothing frilly. No pajamas at all, never mind sexy ones. All she had was one last clean t-shirt. Would he mind? What did he like? She had no idea. Silk? Lace? Leather? Leopard print? Tweed?

She was still unsure what to do when Rupert emerged from his turn in the bathroom, presumably all minty-toothed, wearing just his jeans. She was sitting on the edge of the bed, still in her hiking pants and the tank top.

Rupert knelt by the bed and took her hands. "Buffy. What are you thinking?"

"Just about how sudden this is. Until last night, I hadn't ever thought about you this way at all. You know? You were Giles, my Watcher. And now we're gonna go to bed. You ever think about me this way before?"

"Honestly, no. I was aware you were attractive, but you were my Slayer, and that was... all I wanted." He shrugged a little.

"And now?"

He gave her a fleeting, shy smile. "The vision was quite, uh, intensely persuasive. And eye-opening."

"Yeah." Buffy knew what he meant. Not just technicolor, but sensurround. He'd probably gone through the same reconfiguration moment she had. That is who you were to each other; this is who you shall be to each other from now on.

"Buffy," he said, "We don't have to. If it's too fast."

"Silly man. Come be with me. It's looped, I know, but it's us."

"Bloody strange, is what it is," he said. He got up and turned out the lamp, then, and came to her.

Buffy had that future-memory, of Rupert moving with her, to say that it would be staggeringly good one day. Not that it wasn't good right now, because it was, just a little fumbly. It was sweet, slow, tentative, tender. Rupert treated her as if she might break. Given how she'd been until last night, Buffy understood. She'd been breakable. Now, though, she was alive. He touched her everywhere, and where he touched her, her blood raced and life flowered. She relaxed into him, for the first time ever just letting herself be herself.

Afterward he held her and touched her more, thoughtful and curious finger-strokes along her arm, her shoulder, her face. Buffy had no idea what he was thinking. He finally sighed, and settled himself against her shoulder. "I have always loved you, Buffy," he said, and was asleep.

First they'd gotten engaged, then they'd made love, then Rupert had told her he loved her. Totally backwards from the way she'd thought it would go. Though given the whole Powers-getting-involved thing, she should be grateful that it hadn't gone kid, then engagement, then making love. It allegedly had gone that way in the past, once, hadn't it?

It was different in the morning, in the sunlight. Much sillier, and with a lot more talking. They'd broken the ice and got through the worst, and Buffy knew it was going to be okay. Especially with somebody who'd get in the shower with her and scrub her back.

They had brunch at a place that made Buffy feel at home, all organic vegetables and local produce and healthy sprouts in everything, with a hand-drawn menu. The waiter appeared, and rattled off a bunch of specials.

"I was thinking maybe just the fruit plate," Buffy said. When Rupert made a noise, she said, "What?"

"You're too thin. You need to eat more vitamins, if you're going to, er..." He trailed off in front of the waiter.

"You're not going to turn into one of those, are you?" Buffy said, cryptically. "You're too thin yourself. If I'm eating, you're eating." She let Rupert order breakfast for the two of them: omelets with a lot of organic veggies, and orange juice, and scones. Blood will out. She giggled at him, and ordered coffee for herself.

The coffee was great. Real cream always tasted good. Buffy guzzled, and then, energized, started thinking about what came next. Home. Life changes. Living with Rupert, she assumed. Taking care of Dawn. What she was going to do with herself, other than Slaying. Maybe back to school? Until the baby. Great jumpin' kangaroo rats, a baby.

Buffy hadn't ever let herself wish for that. It had always been in the category of things that Slaying had cost her that hurt too much to even think about. Now, wow, she was guaranteed it. By the best authority ever. Though Buffy knew better than to think that meant it would be easy. They'd get there, to that moment on the bed. But how they got there, and what happened afterward: that could get nasty.

"Penny," said Rupert, over his mug of tea.

"Huh? Oh. Just thinking about what happens next."

"We head home, I suppose."

"Back to the real world," Buffy said. Rupert grunted and drank more tea. "At least we're not dealing with yet another apocalypse." At Rupert's expression, "Oh, no, don't tell me we are. What's been going on?"

"Nothing much, really," he said. "Not on the demon front. There was some, er, Slayage, over the summer, but nothing unusual. It's just..."

"Willow," said Buffy, mind already clicking. She ate a half-slice of toast while she reviewed what she knew. "Okay, spill. I heard you yelling at her in the kitchen the other night. And you told me a little our first night camping. But I need details."

Rupert went into detail, in the sort of methodical review Buffy had come to rely on. The resurrection spell Willow had used was dark, to say the least. If he remembered correctly, the ingredients were not the sort of thing you could obtain through white means. And it required that Willow make a bargain with the god she'd called on. Exactly what the terms of the bargain were, Rupert couldn't say. They varied; usually the caster found to his chagrin that it was difficult to make fair bargains with gods. But they would all have one thing in common: The books had to balance. Buffy's return had cost somebody else's soul. Rupert didn't know whose. Didn't know when it would be collected.

Buffy felt the black thoughts coming back in. She pushed them aside with an act of will. She and Rupert, together on a bed, holding a baby. Purpose.

Rupert held her hand across the table. Buffy gave him a squeeze, then freed herself so she could slather more blackberry preserve on her scone. And oh boy, she had a lot of 'pologizing to do about scone jokes. This thing was good.

"Okay," Buffy said. "So far I'm getting that Willow is in _way_ over her head, and might have a bargain with a god to get out of. We need, like, Daniel Webster. Don't look at me like that. I read stuff in my three semesters of college. What I'm not seeing here is the apocalypsy badness."

"Willow's level of power... Buffy, she wasn't exaggerating that night when she told me she was very powerful, and I should be careful. She has more raw power than any sorcerer I've met in my life. I am able to work around her because she is inexperienced and careless. But those very traits make her more dangerous. She has consistently shown poor judgement in when and how she uses her power. Just now, I... Buffy, I almost suspect her of resurrecting you just to prove she could do it."

Buffy huhed, and finished her orange juice. Yeah, she could see that. Willow was all, "thank me now, Buffy, for graciously having rescued you", and not so much with the "where were you anyway".

"So, options?"

"We wait and see, with Willow herself. I may be overreacting. And there are steps I can take to perhaps determine whose soul is at risk. There are some rules about which souls Willow would have had the right to bargain with." Rupert looked grim at that. Buffy understood. If she'd laid her own soul on the line, it was bad news for Willow. And any bargaining with somebody else's soul was way past acceptable behavior. If Willow had done that, she was in Fair to Slay territory, she was so far black.

Buffy tucked that thought aside to come back to only if necessary.

"How about everybody else? I kinda... I didn't pay much attention to anything before you got here."

"We're all well," Rupert said. "Let's pay the bill and take a little walk, hmm? I can catch you up."

The shops of Cambria were open, and Buffy was in the mood for some window shopping. Not actual shopping, since there was a definite money problem what with the plumbing issues. She wouldn't have gone inside that goldsmith's shop herself, content with drooling at the hand-made stuff in the window cases, but Rupert made her.

There was a lot of cool stuff inside, made by allegedly local craftspeople. Buffy's eye was caught by a Celtic knotwork ring that had deep red garnets worked into the pattern. The stones were set flat. She had learned the hard way that rings with standard settings took a real beating in the Slaying. Sure, she could take them off before patrol, but sometimes the fist-smacking just kinda happened without planning. And then, boom, missing expensive rocks. This ring would be okay; nothing stuck out. She tried it on, and it was nearly a perfect fit. A little loose, maybe. Not exactly an engagement ring, though, and she wasn't going to make Rupert buy her lots of jewelry. Then she saw the wedding rings right in the same case. Knotwork and spirals. Two colors of metal formed the pattern. She gave the ring back to the clerk and drooled. Then she dragged Rupert over to look.

"You'll wear a wedding ring, right?" she said.

"Of course. You like this design? Hmm. It's familiar. There's a famous tomb where this spiral pattern is used." Rupert made a bunch of uncertain noises, and examined the one she liked best carefully. Buffy wondered what he was looking for. Then he looked up at her and nodded. Rupert arranged for the goldsmith to make wedding rings for them, sized to fit. He sent her to the other side of the shop while he settled the bill, and didn't let her look at the receipt. It was going to take a while to get the rings, though.

"Three weeks?" Buffy pouted. "Won't we be married already?"

"It'll take a little to sort out my visa," he said. "I'll put my lawyer on it when we get back to town. The rings will likely be ready for us when the paperwork is. We'll need to come back to pick them up, of course." He quirked up the side of his mouth. Buffy liked the way he thought. Maybe they'd tour this Rosebud guy's castle thing.

They headed back to the inn, to pack and check out. "So what had you so cautious back there? Are you sure you like the ones I picked?"

"Oh, it was just that some knotwork is magical. I wanted to be sure that the spiral pattern you liked was either not magical, or was safe."

"Passed muster?"

"Yes. Oh," he said. "Um." He pulled a box from his pocket.

It was the knot ring with the garnets she'd first noticed. He put it on her finger, and she gave his signet ring back, and they had a little moment that ended with a lot of frantic kissing on the bed.

And that was Cambria, for Buffy and Rupert. One really scenic but boring drive down the coast highway, and they were back in Sunnydale and parking in the reserved spot in the back of the Magic Box.

Anya had jewelry radar that had only been improved by her demon years. She spotted the ring almost instantly, appraised it, and shifted her opinion of Rupert's taste. She looked almost grumpy, in fact, looking at the ring. Then she smiled, and said, "Congratulations!"

Buffy was relieved that Anya was the first to find out. She was the one they could count on to not care about the past, or about convention, or about anything other than how the change in Rupert's marital status would affect her. Sometimes Buffy liked Anya's approach better than the usual ones. If Anya were going to go evil, she'd let you know right up front. "Hello, I'm evil now. Get in my way and I'll kill you. Have a nice day!" Much easier to deal with than this muddled-motive Willow thing.

And in fact Anya performed a logical evaluation of the situation, its implications, and her own desires, and said, "Giles, you are a silent partner now. You can't just change your mind and become the boss again. Even if having a regular sexual partner has obviously already relaxed you."

Rupert opened his mouth, closed it again, swallowed, then spoke. "Yes, yes, I know, Anya. I had some ideas, actually, for expanding the business, that we might discuss. No rush, though. Lot of details to sort out first."

"Good!" said Anya. "Is Buffy not suicidally depressed any more? She appears to be emotionally stable now."

"Yeah," said Buffy. "Think I'm back out of the padded cell. But we have bigger problems than business right now."

"Why? Isn't everything going to be good now that the Slayer is back on the job?"

"Anya, would you mind if I, uh..." Rupert held up the soul stone. Anya shrugged.

Rupert looked through the stone at Anya and repeated a phrase. The stone glowed in rich dark browns and reds. Rupert examined it closely, then smiled at Anya affectionately. He ended the spell.

"You're untouched," he told her.

"Untouched by what?"

"Oh dear."

"What's going on?" Anya looked at Buffy.

Buffy pointed at Rupert. Let him do the talking.

"Well, uh, obviously, there's the issue of what Willow did to bring Buffy back. And the issue of what you were about, Anya, helping her do something so dark. I thought you had better judgment than that. You put your soul in danger." He yanked out the handkerchief for a round of glasses-polishing.

"Dark? What are you talking about?"

Rupert sighed. "Anya, how much do you know about the Pact of Horus?"

"Pact of Horus? Willow performed a Portal to the Realm of Osiris to rescue a trapped soul. The Pact is for when the soul has truly been lost and sent to its final reward. And that wasn't the case with Buffy."

Buffy was starting to get pissed off. None of her friends had even bothered to _ask_ where she'd gone. Except for Rupert, who was looking pretty annoyed.

"Oh? Fawn's blood, the urn of Osiris, snakes-- what else would it be?"

"Willow said a full resurrection wouldn't be... uh oh."

"Indeed."

"You're right, Giles," said Anya. "This is not good. The Pact is not a spell with a good reputation. Xander will also need to be checked."

"And Tara was the fourth? Of course. Where did she get the other things she'd have needed? Did she buy them from you?"

"No. We all know that Willow has no income and couldn't afford anything. She has in fact been taking reagents regularly without paying. It is most annoying."

"That ends now. And I think we need to do inventory," Rupert said. Lurking message: what else has Willow been up to? Great.

Anya nodded. "If she's been stealing valuable merchandise, she'll need to pay us back. First we need to take her off the exceptions list."

Rupert agreed.

"Exceptions list?"

"The anti-theft wards," Rupert said. "They won't stop Willow, if she's determined, but they will make an unholy ruckus if she attempts to walk out of here with unpurchased goods."

They went over to the shop door together, and pointed at the runes up over the lintel, and started spewing magic jargon at each other. Buffy was feeling out of her depth. Normally she'd just go Slay whatever it was that was causing problems. But you couldn't just go Slay your best girlfriend. And Slaying witches was difficult even when they weren't mega-powerful like the Willster. This needed finesse. So, not a Slayer job, yet.

She sighed and wandered over to the tarot table. There were some magazines there, and a paperback she'd seen Dawn reading for school. She picked up the paperback and plunged in where Dawn's bookmark was. The story started off with a guy in a bathtub, smoking a cigarette and getting ashes all over the letter he was reading and ashes in the bathwater. Which was gross, but Buffy kept on, and was sucked into reading about all these kids in this family. When Dawn appeared and shrieked hello, Buffy was almost annoyed. Then she was hugging Dawn, who was the most important person in the world to her, even more important than Rupert, and telling her about waking up in the middle of the night to hear bears.

Dawn took a little longer to notice the ring. Buffy had to lay her left hand out casually on the table for a while. Her eyes got huge, and she looked at Buffy, then at Rupert, and got this "no kidding, _him_?" look on her face.

"Yeah," said Buffy. "Rupert and me."

"Are you, like, better now?" Dawn asked this cautiously, as if she were scared Buffy would be mad at the suggestion she'd been less than good.

"Yeah," said Buffy. "Not so depressed any more."

"Because of Giles?"

"He helped. The ritual we did helped a lot. But it was some other stuff that happened. I don't know if I can explain it. But it was good. It's gonna be all right."

"I like Giles," said Dawn. "He's always been here for us. Kinda old, I guess."

Buffy shrugged. "Don't care about that."

"If you say so. Do I get to be a bridesmaid?"

"Duh!"

"Are you going to make me wear something stupid?"

"No way. Now get your homework done. If it's done before dinner, maybe we can go to the Bronze or something."

Dawn made a face, but opened her history textbook anyway.

At closing time, Rupert drove them to get some groceries, then home. Buffy was content to let him cook for the moment. He was way better than she was. She could be laundry gal. Buffy dragged the packs straight down to the basement, with its new copper piping, and dumped all the washable stuff straight into the machine. Suds it up, spin the dial, go. She hung the packs on the wall, with all the other gear still in them. She paused a moment to look at them fondly. Maybe they'd go again some time soon. Get a second tent for Dawn, and head up to the valley where the guy said there were marmots. It would have to be soon, though, because it was fall up there, and it'd start snowing in another month. Oh well.

Upstairs, she sat on one of the kitchen stools and watched Rupert cook. Deja-vu, except this time she was smiling at him, and he at her. She helped, even, slicing up salad makings at his request.

Tara showed up first, from her job at the university bookstore. Buffy had learned from Dawn that Tara and Giles had kept them all afloat over the summer, until Hank Summers had been prevailed upon to cough up cash for the mortgage. Buffy was okay with Tara.

While she and Tara were setting the table, Buffy caught Rupert leaning casually in the doorway to the kitchen, sticking the soul stone back in his pocket. He nodded to her, briefly. Tara was okay. So either Willow had bargained away Xander's soul, or her own. Buffy was not betting on Xander. It would be like Will, to risk only herself, and to think she was smart enough to wriggle out of the clause somehow.

Buffy had to remind herself that un-magic-tainted Willow was a good person, when they were all sitting at the dinner table, talking about the hiking trip. Willow wanted _all_ the details. And from the grumpy looks she kept casting at Rupert, Buffy guessed that Willow had tried to look in, and been rebuffed.

Buffy decided to give her the terse version. "I had a vision-thing. I saw that Whistler guy again. He had some messages from the Power."

"Anything cool? About how great it is that you're back?"

"No, actually," said Buffy. She gave Rupert one tiny glance to warn him that she was about to spill. "He said you'd really done a number on me. I was supposed to you know, stay in heaven for my reward. It's unfair that I was yanked out, but here I am, so they have a mission for me. For us. For me and Rupert. We're, uh, getting married." Buffy held up her left hand.

The old Willow would have burst into tears, and said something incoherent over and over about how sorry she was and how happy, and then Buffy would have hugged her. And then they'd have done each other's nails, and some other silly bonding stuff, and Will would apologize and Buffy would ask her to be her bridesmaid. But the new Willow, not about to cry. Not about to go any place but anger, apparently. But covered up with a layer of sweet that was almost like who Willow had been.

"Oh, Buffy, that's so wonderful!" said covered-up Willow. "And so special! And so convenient for Giles, to get something he's always wanted so much and thought was so, you know, wrong to want. But now it's okay! You'll have to tell us what the mission is, so we can help."

Rupert's lips were compressed. He met Buffy's glance for a moment, and once again a message was passed. Stay calm.

"Naw," said Buffy. "Not the kind of thing we need help with."

Tara's face was white and her eyes bright. All the guilt that Willow should have had was right there. "I'm really happy for both of you," she said, stammering. Buffy reached over and squeezed Tara's hand. Willow watched, but she said nothing.

Dawn made a face, either because she'd picked up on the strain or because she'd utterly missed it, Buffy didn't know which. The rest of the dinner conversation was all about Kevin the cute guy in her English class.

Rupert kissed Buffy at the door when she left for patrol, and told her to be careful. Buffy was almost happy to be heading out for patrol. It was a routine she'd had for years now. The comfortable, familiar, plain vamp-slaying business. No angst, no drama, no passive-aggressive comments, just the quips and then the staking. It was amazing how a hopeless confrontation with a hellgod could change your point of view.

The first vampire was, she realized, her dental hygienist. Why would anyone turn her? Spending eternity with the chick who rototills your gums and keeps telling you to floss your fangs, ew. Though hey, maybe the vamps had, like, issues with fang cavities. Buffy was grumpy, thinking that she'd have to find a new dentist.

"_Don't_ comment on my brushing technique," said Buffy to the once-perky Angie. Left uppercut, then a low spinning kick to knock Angie over.

"What? Not gonna loom over me with rubber gloves and pointy things? You're no fun any more." Buffy brought the stake down, and that was that.

Buffy stomped off to the next cemetery. She better not find her hairdresser popping out of the grave. As she booked down the sidewalk, her Slayer senses fired, but in a muted way. She turned: yeah, there was Spike, hopping over the wall.

"Hey, Slayer."

"Hey, vampire."

"Nice retreat with the Watcher?"

"Yeah."

"You tell him?"

"Turns out he already knew."

"Always knew he was smart."

They turned in through the Restview gate.

"You seem better," Spike said. "If a mite terse."

"I feel better," Buffy said, perching herself on a headstone.

Spike took her hand, cold vamp-fingers on hers, and Buffy was all set to smack him. But he was bending to look at the ring. He looked at it, looked at her, then dropped her hand. He lit a cigarette, and put his hand on his belt to do a little swaggering.

A vamp came at them, just then, from a nearby crypt. Buffy got right down to business.

"So, Slayer, you're engaged?"

"Yup." She did a really showy and unnecessary roundhouse kick that sent the vamp flying to Spike's feet.

"Rupes?" said Spike, hauling the newbie back up and throwing it at Buffy.

"Yup." Buffy kicked, spun, and staked.

Spike just stood there watching the dust fall. He swore. "Rupes," he said, again, with a dejected finality that made Buffy feel a combination relieved and icked out. Even without the old nudge from the Powers, she wouldn't have gone for sex with another dead body. She hoped.

Buffy didn't know why, but she felt like talking to Spike. He'd been the only one she could tell about heaven. Probably he'd be a good listener on this stuff. "The Powers gave us a vision," she told him. "We're gonna have a baby. Hence the getting married."

"You're not joking."

"Nope."

"You coulda done worse, Slayer. It coulda been that Harris lad."

Buffy decided to ignore the insult to her bestest non-Rupert guy friend. "Lots worse. Oh yeah. Willow's soul is probably going to be eaten by Osiris to pay for resurrecting me. Which isn't making me happy. So if you get any good ideas about that one, I'm all ears."

Spike had nothing useful to say to that, just another oath. He stared at her and took a long drag on his foul cigarette. She took off for the next cemetery, not waiting to see if he'd follow. He did, of course. She had her own pet vampire.

When she got back, the house was mostly shut up for the night. Dawn was in bed, which was good: school night. Rupert was on her bed, in stripey flannel pajama bottoms, with a fountain pen and a sheaf of paper. He looked too big for the bed all by himself. They were definitely going to have to kick Willow and Tara out. Buffy wasn't looking forward to that.

Rupert capped his pen. "How'd it go?"

"Five," she said. "Newbies, mostly. Piece of cake. What'cha writing?"

"Report to the Council on the results of our trip." And at Buffy's face, "They did pay for it, after all. And perhaps I forgot to mention... Quentin Travers lost his post after, after the Glory incident. When they debriefed me. New management. A bit more, ah, sympathetic? to the needs of Slayers."

"That wouldn't be hard," Buffy said. "Telling them about the vision?"

"I must," he said. "We'll need help researching it. There are likely prophecies associated with, uh, the coming child."

She took a really fast shower, just enough to get the dust out, then hurried back to him.

Her bed squeaked. And that pretty white-painted scrolly metal headboard banged the wall. Rupert actually stopped and got up to move the bed so they wouldn't make so much noise. Buffy giggled at him helplessly. He growled, and pulled her down onto the floor, blankets and all, and they finished there, much more quietly. Except for the giggling.

They dropped off Dawn at school, early, before Willow had gotten out of bed. Rupert mailed his report. Then it was Magic Box, before opening, for the inventory. Anya was there, grateful to inhale the mocha Buffy brought for her, and so was Xander.

He pulled Buffy back into the training room. "Really?" he said.

"Really," Buffy told him. "And it's good. Way good. This one's a keeper."

"I just, wow. Didn't see this coming in any way, shape, or form."

"Neither did we, Xan."

"You sure it's not just, 'cause, um." Xander came to a nervous halt. Buffy laughed at him a little.

"No, Xan, it's not just 'cause I was a depressed wreck and Giles rescued me. There's some other stuff that happened on the trip. Really good stuff. It's gonna be okay. Love ya for worrying about me." She kissed Xander's forehead, and gave him a big hug, which he returned with interest.

Back in the shop, Xander pulled Rupert aside and talked to him for a few minutes, then went off to work. Buffy asked what Xander had said.

"He, er, told me he would kick my arse if I hurt you." Rupert looked a bit dazed, then annoyed. "I forgot to test him."

"Don't panic. We'll get another chance."

The inventory-taking went on all day, and it made Anya grumpy.

The missing items were in three categories. There were a few non-magical items of jewelry missing. Tourist items, the sort of thing you'd buy if you wanted to look witchy. Second were ritual objects, items used as focuses in spells. As Giles and Anya itemized those, they both started looking grim.

Third, spell reagents. The stock in the basement was seriously depleted. Though as Buffy pointed out, given the tunnel access and the collection of flattened Marlboro butts just beyond, Spike was likely to blame for some of that. He probably pilfered the petrified hamsters to sell for blood and smoke money. But the ritual objects, which were kept under lock and key, those had to have been taken by somebody who could get past the wards.

Buffy fetched lunch for the three of them from the sandwich place next to the florist. They slumped at the tarot table, munched, and reviewed the list.

"Giles," said Anya. "I would like to invest in a computerized inventory system."

"I'm not going to argue with you," said Giles. "Let's budget for it." He sighed. "Most of this was taken over the summer, I think. Willow's had a problem for a while, I believe. Damn. I... I wasn't paying attention to her. I ought to have noticed."

Buffy squeezed his hand. "What's been happening with her?"

"It's complex. Magic is seductive. Especially to someone as powerful as Willow. As, as fascinated by knowledge. It's easy to begin choosing to use it to smooth life out. To take what isn't yours. Make someone love you who doesn't. And, and, when you're as powerful as Willow, to wrest back what death has taken away."

Buffy could grasp that. Slayers had a similar issue, and Faith had fallen victim to it. Because she could fight, and hit things with great skill, it was tempting to use that to solve all problems in front of her. Don't like it? Slay it! Somebody annoying you? Smack them! But even Buffy, who'd never thought of herself as philosophy girl, could see the ethical problems with that. How come Willow couldn't? Willow, who'd always seemed so much sweeter and more good than Buffy felt?

She'd ask Rupert, but she could see he was working up to one of his guilt fits about Willow. No sense contributing. Instead she asked Rupert which books she should start looking in for prophecies they might care about. They switched modes to book-reading, and Rupert seemed less tense.

Willow and Tara appeared in mid-afternoon, shortly after Dawn arrived from school. It was almost like old times, everybody gathered around the tarot table with their own stuff to work on. Except for the strain. Anya was glaring at Willow. Tara was hunched in on herself, unable to meet anyone's eye. She couldn't seem to look at Buffy. Willow was aggressively normal, and cheerful, and cutting.

"I'm going to look up soundproofing spells," she said, burbling. "It was a little hard to get to sleep last night."

Rupert flushed and buried his face in the Pergamum Codex. Buffy was a little pissed. She'd certainly heard Willow and Tara in action, and even Willow and Oz back in the day. Willow climbed up to the private library and started rummaging ostentatiously.

Giles pulled the soul stone from his jacket pocket just enough to show it to Buffy. Buffy nodded. "I only need a few moments," he said.

Willow was heading down from the shelves with a modern book with a paper cover. She bent to tuck it away in her bag.

Klaxons sounded.

"What's going on?" said Willow. She looked annoyed.

Anya came belting over from behind the counter.

"You're not allowed to steal things any more," she said. "We have a list of things we think you stole that you're going to pay for."

Buffy stepped back to Rupert and raised a finger to alert him. Window of opportunity coming up.

Anya was arguing with Willow, and it was getting loud. Anya presented the list of missing items, and a detailed bill. She was trying to get Willow to take it. Willow folded her arms.

Rupert held up the stone, looked through it at Willow, and said his Sumerian words three times, softly, rapidly. He brought it down to his lap. It glowed red, shining through the fingers of Rupert's right hand. He looked down, smiled a moment, then sucked in his breath. Buffy looked. Willow, essence of Willow. Patchouli incense burning. Chrysanthemums. Crystals. Herbs in bunches. Tarot cards. A Powerbook, with lines running out from it to the world, humming with energy. Books, paperbacks with bright covers, in great stacks in the Sunnydale High library. Mathematical equations on a chalkboard. The spiral helix of DNA, twisting. But... Emptiness. Envy. Hunger. A little knot of black there, at the very heart of the stone. A void. Not a lot of black, yet, not all consuming. But there was a missing space where Willowness should have been. And in its place, something alien.

"I felt that! What are you doing?" Willow turned her back on Anya and stalked up to Rupert. Buffy went on alert and stepped back. Started edging around to get behind Willow.

Rupert stood and reached out to her. "Willow," he said. "We know what you did to bring back Buffy. We know the trouble you're in."

Willow let him hold her hand. Buffy let out her breath. It was going to be okay, just the usual mess with a spell that Willow got in. A lecture from Rupert, a clean-up, then Willow would bake guilt-cookies for a couple of months. Willow sniffled, a little.

Rupert held out the stone for her to see, cautiously, still holding her hand in his. "It's only just begun. We have time, yet."

Willow looked at the stone, then at Rupert. Her face changed.

"No, you don't, Giles," she said. "Bad librarian." She gestured.

The soul stone exploded in Rupert's hand.


	3. Chapter 3

The soul stone exploded in Rupert's hand. He clutched his wrist and cried out.

Time slowed down for Buffy. She crouched and sprang. Vaulted across the table. Slammed a kick into Willow's head, sending her flying back toward the stairs. Twisted and changed her trajectory and landed next to Dawn, square-on to Willow.

Willow was out cold.

Time sped up again. Buffy put a hand under Dawn's elbow and pulled her out of her seat.

"Nine-one-one. _Now_."

Dawn scampered.

Two steps forward, and Buffy stood over Willow, close enough to disrupt any casting motion. The adrenaline surged, about thirty seconds later than Slayer reflexes had, and Buffy had to lock herself under iron control. Her urge was to Slay. To Slay with bare hands. She wouldn't yield to it. Rupert thought Willow could be saved. Control.

Buffy's peripheral vision saw Anya doing something with Willow's bookbag, Tara helping Giles to a chair, Dawn coming closer with the phone handset to her ear.

Willow stirred. Slayer-focus on the enemy. Buffy's stance shifted. Knees bent, center of balance low and forward, hands in striking position. Willow looked up at her, and Buffy's heart froze. There was no friendliness in that expression, no sign of her cheerful friend.

"I won't kill you," Willow informed her.

"That's nice."

"I did good work with you, and I'd rather not waste it. You better keep your pet librarian away from me, though. I won't hesitate with him. Thinks he's the hero. Thinks he can come in here and make everything better and have everybody eating out of his hand again, after he abandoned us here--"

"Woah. Somebody's got issues."

"You're not grateful, are you," Willow said. "I gave you life again, and all you did was complain."

"You ripped me out of heaven."

Willow smiled. "I did. I defeated a god to do it, too."

"Doesn't look like you won to me."

"Wrong point of view. Wrong god. Horus and I have an understanding. Your pretentious nameless trinity-god was weak."

Buffy felt another little flare of outrage, but she just shook her head. "This is crazy, Will. Why are you doing this? Rupert only wants to help."

"Help by taking away what I've earned. Help by controlling me. Limiting me. He's jealous of me, you know."

Buffy's eyes widened. "No, he's not. But... ah, screw it. Willow. What now? What are we going to do? I can't let you hurt people."

Through this entire conversation Buffy had not wavered or relaxed. She was still ready to strike, and willing to do so. Behind her she could hear Anya talking to Rupert, and Dawn on the phone. The emergency people would be there soon, and the standoff would have to end somehow. Willow seemed to realize this as well. She reached a hand out for her bag, lying against the bookshelf at her back. Buffy kicked it aside and resumed ready stance, even closer to Willow than before.

Willow shook her head. "You can't stop me."

"From doing what?"

"Anything. Magic is amazing, you know that?"

Willow stabbed out her hand, and Buffy felt a huge force pressing her chest backwards. She dropped flat, and it rushed over her head. Something behind her smashed. Time slowed down again as the Slayer reflexes engaged. Buffy did a spin, lashing out a foot and kicking the backpack even further away from Willow. Up on her feet, and now she had to dodge a stream of books fired out from the shelves.

Willow ran. Buffy chased, but she smacked hard into the emergency personnel in the Magic Box doorway, and was down in a tangle of people and medical kits. She rebounded to her feet in an instant, thought about continuing after Willow, then gave it up. She didn't know what she'd do with Willow if she caught her, anyway. Slay her? No. She had to talk to Rupert.

Who was hurt.

Buffy picked up the EMT person she'd flattened and practically carried the poor woman over to where Rupert was sitting at the tarot table, hand elevated but streaming blood. Tara had open the first aid kit from behind the register and had done some basics already. The EMT took over smoothly.

Buffy knelt beside Rupert and held his good hand. Time to distract him from whatever the EMT was doing. His face was white and he was shaky. But he held it together enough to ask her a question with his eyes.

"Gone. I saved her bookbag. There's something in it she wanted."

Rupert nodded, and sucked in a breath. He turned his face further away from where the med-tech was plying the tweezers. Buffy watched curiously. She had lost the squeamishness years ago. And normally Rupert had an iron stomach, too, when he was pulling demon claws out of her back. He was only a baby about his own gore, then. She squeezed his good hand, his left hand, and kissed the back of his neck. He responded by saying a bad word in another language.

"Hey. I can go hold somebody else's hand if you're going to talk like that."

"Sorry," he said, not sounding sorry at all. But his face was sweaty and his breathing was shallow. Buffy knew what to do from long experience with feeling exactly that way herself.

"Talk to me. Tell me about what you read in the Pergamum Codex, that, uh, that fascinating fantasy novel with all the demons and stuff."

"Bugger all, that's what I read in it. There's nothing to read. No prophecies about, er, fantasy heroes of the sort you're interested in."

"Sir? Mr Giles?"

Buffy looked up. A policeman. Buffy exchanged a tiny nod with him. The officer was somebody she'd seen before on her patrols. The Slayer had an understanding with the Sunnydale police, now that they weren't being run by a demon-wanna-be.

"Can I ask what happened here? It looks as if there was some kind of altercation."

Buffy opened her mouth, but Rupert beat her to it. "No, no, nothing of the kind. I was holding a glass trinket in my hand, one of the hand-crafted items we sell in the store. I must have squeezed, and it fractured. Pure accident." The EMT did something, and he winced. "I'll be lodging a complaint with the artist. This is most unacceptable."

The officer cast a slow glance over the books strewn across the floor, raised his eyebrow, then seemed to give up. Probably he was imagining having to write a report describing demons; better to participate in the mass collective pretense. He said something into his radio, then rolled out the front door.

The EMT snipped off some gauze, and taped it down.

"Okay, sir, that's the urgent injuries dealt with. We're going to get you to the hospital now to get the rest of this cleaned up and bandaged up. All right?"

Rupert growled, but nodded in assent. They wouldn't let him walk to the ambulance, of course, but wheeled him out. On impulse, Buffy grabbed Willow's backpack and zipped it shut. She slung it over her shoulder and followed them through the door to get a ride in the ambulance to her favorite place in the world, Sunnydale General.

At least this time everybody was going home again afterward.

A couple of hours later, Xander picked up Buffy and Rupert from the hospital in the Cherokee. He had along with him Anya, Dawn, and a big bag of takeout Chinese. Rupert rode home in the back seat sandwiched between Dawn and Buffy. If he hadn't been full of painkiller he would probably have been grumpy about all the attention. His hand was fine, or it would be once about four million nasty cuts had a chance to heal. He had a bottle of antibiotics and a bottle of Vicodin, which Buffy had taken charge of.

Anya kept up a steady stream of distraction, recounting the dollar amounts of the estimated damage done to the shop by Willow, which wasn't all that bad. Nothing had broken except for some garden gnome repelling ornaments. Mostly she was grousing about the time she'd had to spend picking up books to make the shop look tidy enough to be attractive. Rupert made noises at the proper moments. Buffy met Xander's eyes in the rear-view mirror. He was worried.

When they got to Revello Drive, he drew Buffy aside for a quick update. They stood in the hallway, whispering to each other, while Dawn and Anya got Rupert set up in the living room. Buffy told Xander what had happened with Willow, what she'd said, and Xander just shook his head.

"Buff, she isn't the same. Something changed with her this summer. Or not so much a change, as a... I don't know how to put this. A side of Willow that's been sat on all her life. Her whole life, she's had somebody like Cordelia stomping on her. Or somebody like you in the way. Natural leader. No, don't shake your head, you know it's true."

Buffy made a face. It wasn't by choice, but Xander was right. He hunched his shoulders and stuck his hands into his jeans pockets.

"She really took charge when you were, um, gone, you know? Giles was already checking out. I think she liked it. I thought it was good for her, believe it or not. She was kinda, you know, growing up into a big Willow."

"So why'd she bring me back, if she liked things without me?"

Xander shrugged. "Got me. Maybe she thought she'd be in the Giles slot. You know, calling the shots in a behind the scenes way."

Buffy rolled her eyes. Rupert was the chief advisor, not the shots-caller, even back when she'd been in high school. It sort of made sense, though probably it wasn't the whole explanation. And who knew? Maybe Willow had done it to test herself. Or because it seemed cool. Or because she genuinely felt the world had needed a sane Slayer who wasn't a jailbird, since the Slayer succession had now been proven to go through Faith. Maybe Willow herself didn't understand why.

Just then the front door opened, and Tara stepped in. She froze in the doorway when she saw Xander and Buffy, then gave a jerky little hand wave to them both. Buffy thought it was time to make it clear that Willow's sins were not Tara's sins, and she was grateful to Tara for taking care of Dawn over the summer. Buffy opened her mouth to say something, but Tara walked past them into the dining room. She didn't speak at all.

"And that's a big huh," Buffy said.

"Ooookay," Xander said. "I am now wigged big-time."

"No kidding."

Dinner was creepy because of Tara. She was way too calm. Robotic, almost. She did her part of the chores afterward, but without her usual cheerfulness and care for Dawn. Buffy could see Rupert's alarm. He pulled her away from the dish-washing, in fact, for a group chat in the living room. Tara followed him, calmly.

The group was assembled there. Xander was holding Willow's backpack and flipping at the zippers. Anya was pacing near the television. Dawn made room for Buffy on the couch.

Tara came into the center of the room and stopped. "Oh! You have Willow's backpack. Good. I'll take that."

Xander held it out reflexively. Tara grabbed it and made a beeline for the front door. Buffy got up to chase.

"Tara. Stop." Rupert's voice was commanding and stern. He raised his good hand. Buffy felt the power move, and Tara stopped. "Give that back to me."

"But Willow needs it," Tara said, reasonably. "It has her homework in it."

Buffy took the backpack from her. She had to tug, and for a second she was afraid Tara would fight her. But then she released it and slumped.

Rupert spoke, gently. "Tara, where is Willow?"

"I don't... I don't know." Tara looked confused, and distressed for a moment before the calm spread over her face again.

Rupert took the backpack from Buffy, and zipped it open. Dawn cleared off the corner of the coffee table for him, and he dumped it out. Notebooks; a Badtz Maru case containing pens and highlighters and mechanical pencils; a history textbook, which was probably the thing that had been making it weigh a ton; a stapled draft of a lit paper on Virginia Woolf, with notes in Willow's tiny handwriting. And other things: a baggy of herbs, a cigarette lighter, a box of strange incense, a metal pipe with a wire mesh baffle, a leather-bound spellbook that Buffy touched with a finger then recoiled from, a few crystals of various types, and an odd polished rock with a leather cord threaded through a hole in one end. In the outer pocket was a little statue of a falcon that Buffy also refused to touch. And then Rupert pulled out a dried branch of herb, with a scrap of paper tied around it.

"Lethe's bramble," he said.

He unrolled the paper, and his face changed. He snatched the lighter and ignited it, and carried the burning scrap over to the fireplace. Tara froze in place, and began shaking and shuddering in a horrible way. Buffy got behind her and held her up with hands on her shoulders. It was over as fast as it started. Tara's head dropped, and she shivered in an entirely different way. She drew in a deep breath. Buffy let go.

Rupert took her hand in his good one. "Tara?"

"Giles. Mr Giles. She... Willow..."

"She's been tampering with your memory."

Tara shook her head, as if to clear it. "She's been... more than that. Memory. Controlling. She--"

Rupert drew her over to the sofa and sat with her. "Tell me about it, please."

Tara was confused and mixed-up at first, then she settled under Rupert's calm questions. Things fell into place in her head, and her memories sorted themselves out. And Buffy saw something she'd never seen before: Tara in a cold fury.

Willow had been tampering for months. She'd got her start with the mind control spells early, almost before Tara had fully recovered from Glory. She'd brought up the topic of the resurrection spell right away, and Tara had been upset, and said she'd need to discuss it with Giles. She'd been worried. Willow's reaction had been to nod, and smile, and cast the first memory spell.

She'd worked hard to convince the other three that the resurrection needed to be accomplished. And she'd done what she had to, to keep them from mentioning it to Rupert or to Spike. Or even to Dawn: Dawn and Buffy had already learned about resurrection spells and their dangers. She'd cast minor persuasion charms on Xander and Anya both.

Xander looked heartbroken. He was huddled in on himself in the armchair. Buffy felt bad for him.

Anya, for once, did not make a lot of noise or tell stories about what she'd done to similar offenders in the past. She merely moved to stand behind Xander's chair. She folded her arms. Her face had gone stony and cold. The two of them had never liked each other, Buffy remembered. Maybe Anya's instincts had been better than Buffy's own.

"I was so _stupid_," she said. "I should have known. I should have been aware. I should have-- should have called on my connections to deal with her."

Rupert spoke. "Anya."

"What do you want, Giles?"

"Anya, you must promise me not to take revenge yourself. You must promise me you'll allow Buffy to handle this."

Anya cocked her head and considered. "If she promises me she will."

"I will. I'll do the right thing, Anya. All of you."

Whatever the right thing was. Buffy thought it had been good that Willow hadn't tampered with Dawn. She might not have been able to keep herself under control.

Anya nodded at last. "I trust you. It's your job."

Rupert relaxed. "We'll need to examine the three of you for residual spells and get them all cleared away. Can you take charge of that for us, Anya?"

Which was probably good psychology, because Anya relaxed finally. It was something she could do.

Next the gang trooped together up to Willow and Tara's bedroom. Rupert was wary of booby traps, but Tara walked in, unconcerned. It was nearly empty: all of Willow's clothes were gone, all of her magical gear. Only Tara's things remained. Tara looked desolate. Abandoned. Shed like last year's fashion. For some reason the sight of Tara holding back her sniffles made Buffy angrier than anything that Willow had done the whole time.

"Where will she have gone?"

Xander answered, because Tara was too upset. "Probably her parents' place. They still have a house in town, and sometimes show up there, even."

Soon after that Anya and Xander left, and Dawn stayed with Tara upstairs. Buffy pushed Rupert onto the couch. He was looking exhausted and white in the face.

"Are you gonna take your pills?"

"They make it hard to think. I need to think, right now."

But Rupert looked as if thinking were beyond him, as if one more burden would overwhelm him. Buffy read the label, fumbled with the cap and did not crush it in a moment of Slayery frustration, and shook out one little white pill. She handed it to Rupert, along with her bottle of water. Rupert's eyebrows came together for a moment, and she thought she was going to have to gear up to fight him. Then he sighed and swallowed the pill.

"I think there's still glass in my hand."

"Can you magic it out?"

"Tara might be able to help it along. It'll work itself out naturally."

Rupert settled himself more comfortably on the sofa, book in one hand, the other hand resting across his chest. Buffy poked at the litter of objects on the coffee table. Strange things. She didn't like touching some of them, like the falcon statue and the book.

"Is Willow doing drugs?"

Rupert shook his head. "No, not in the recreational sense. Everything in that bag was for magic ritual. You're reacting to some of the objects. Why?"

"They feel wrong. Unclean. Like touching them would contaminate me."

"Dark magic, then. And advanced magic, if she's trying rituals that require altered states."

"Rupert, can't we call somebody? Get some more guns here? The Council?"

"I'll try. But you might not like their solution. They're likely to shoot first and worry later about what was truly going wrong."

Buffy frowned. She didn't approve of that. Willow deserved another chance. Another infinity of chances, if Buffy could get her way. Though she wasn't sure how. She had to get a chance to talk to Willow in a unstressy situation. Probably without Rupert there.

"Feeling better?"

"Somewhat."

Buffy could tell he was, though. His face had lost that pinched look, and had smoothed out. She stroked his hair. He sighed, and leaned his head back against the cushions.

"Going to be bad, Buffy. Can't see any way through it."

Buffy tilted her head. "No argument about Tara already owning Willow's soul?"

Rupert snorted. "As if a real god would pay attention to petty arguments like that. There are rules, but they have nothing to do with human laws. She offered him a soul. He's going to take a soul. An exchange of power. She willingly gave him control."

"Why? That's why I don't get."

"I understand only too well. 'Tis magic that hath ravished me. Oh, Willow." He closed his eyes for a moment, and his expression was strange. Longing, then a flash of shame. Then he opened them again and met Buffy's gaze. He was serious now, and the line between his eyebrows was deep. "Her soul, I fear it's lost. Can't fight gods, Buffy. Not the likes of us."

Buffy knew he was right about that. Buffy kissed his forehead, hoping to make that line go away though she knew she couldn't. She stood up.

"Speaking of fighting stuff, I gotta patrol. Quick one."

Dawn appeared just then, with a stack of textbooks and assignments. She thunked herself down next to Rupert on the sofa. "If you're gonna be my brother-in-law, I'm gonna take full advantage of your brains."

Rupert smiled at her, and sat up. He looked pleased, so Buffy left them to it.

Spike was waiting for her when she got outside, hovering under the maple tree next to a pile of butts. Buffy nodded to him, professional greeting, and they both took off across town. Buffy needed to run a bit, to work off the energy she'd built up from sitting three hours in the hospital waiting room. Spike stayed right with her, jogging in his Doc Martens exactly like somebody who never had to worry about blisters. Not that Buffy did either. Not for more than a few hours, anyway.

They found their first vampires loitering behind the Bronze. They took turns punching and staking, tossing the vamps back and forth between them.

Spike stepped back to watch her finish the last one. "How are things with Red?"

Buffy staked it before she answered. "Open war. She hurt Rupert and I had to kick her in the head. Then she started tearing up the store. She took off. Also, very bad stuff with memory and control spells on Tara and maybe Xander too. Total morality meltdown."

Spike swore. "Moving fast, then. Is it what Rupes thought?"

Buffy nodded. "It's pretty awful. Rupert thinks Willow is damned."

Spike looked at her, face blank, then strode off. Buffy followed. "I'll welcome her to the club, then, shall I? Teach her the special handshake."

"Don't be stupid. You're not damned. Not unless you want to be."

Spike snorted. "Demons don't go to heaven, do they. So it's not a topic I'm interested in. Conversation over."

"Okay. This is gonna sound strange, but I think you're wrong. I think they do. I think I met some. And I know one who does missions for the big guy."

Spike stopped short, and Buffy nearly smacked into him. "Don't. Don't do it, Slayer."

"What?"

"Don't build me up like this. Don't break my heart again. I'm damned, and that's the end of it."

Buffy stamped her foot. "No, you're not. Don't believe it. I've been there. I know what I saw, who I talked to."

Spike transformed and bared his fangs to her. "In case you missed it, doll, I haven't got a soul. What's there to send to heaven?"

"I have no clue how it works. Different rules for demons, maybe? Humans go in as their souls. Demons get in another way." Buffy watched Spike's face closely. "You're scared. I can tell. Scares you spitless."

Spike made a show of pulling out a cigarette and lighting it. He tipped his ridged forehead up to the blank sky and blew smoke. "Don't be daft. Let's go kill something, Slayer. Pfah!"

Buffy opened her mouth to tell him what she thought of that, then closed it again. No point with Spike. If he was ever going to understand it, he'd understood it already and was just pretending not to. He needed time to process.

"Vamps dockside, I think. I haven't been there much."

"Lead on."

He was at her heels all the way across town, even though she pushed it. It felt nice to do some running, work out the kinks and kick out the jams and do a few frontflips just because. Buffy kept the reflexes and the muscles under control most of the time, but it was nice to let rip at night when nobody was looking. Pure joy of movement, of feeling the world stream past you, feeling your body do what it could do so magnificently. Reflexes and balance and muscles all united in one perfect leap to the top of a fence, and the flip over to the other side. The joy of battle, of killing what she had been sent by the Powers to kill. Buffy Summers, defender of humanity. That was what she was.

The docks were crawling with vamps, and conversation had to take a back seat to a few quick fights. They got back to it eventually, as they canvassed the warehouses, striding through the alleys between them sniffing out the demons.

"Rupes learned anything about your sprog?"

"No. Pergamum Codex has nothing, he said. He's asked the Council to look."

"Don't think he'll find anything in the standard monkish ravings. The demons have their legends, though. Was thinkin' about this while I was sitting in the crypt around noon, all insomniac-like. He might have a chat with the Great Poof's pet Watcher. He's gone all obsessed about prophecies and children."

"Wes? What's up with him?" Spike turned his back on her, and Buffy was instantly suspicious. "Spill it, Spike."

"It's more what's up with Angel. And no, I'm not going to tell you his secrets. The great poof will have to tell you himself. If he dares." Spike muttered the last.

Buffy sighed. She'd been hoping not to have to talk to Angel just yet. That was a whole big ball of waxy worms that she didn't want to deal with. She knew she'd have to. Angel had to know she was back, and he had to have an opinion about it. She'd have to deal with another storm of emotion rained all over her, by somebody who'd been grieving and had suddenly to cope with turning off the grief.

A few days ago it would have felt impossible. Just another burden that living had loaded onto her back. Now, it felt annoying but do-able. And face it. She still cared for Angel. Just not the same way as before.

"Yeah, okay. I'll ask him. Rupert's sorta pulling his hair out."

The next few minutes were occupied with a fast and furious vamp fight, some good old-fashioned dusty mayhem of the kind Buffy had recently learned to appreciate. She broke a nail during the fight, and settled herself on a pile of crates afterward to pout and file it down. It happened _every_ time.

Spike paced back and forth in front of her, puffing on another one of those cigarettes. She wondered if Slayers suffered from second-hand smoke.

"You're gonna hafta quit smoking around me when I get pregnant, you know. Whenever the prophecy wants us to." Buffy made a face.

Spike inhaled deeply, and blew out the smoke in a long thin stream. He had a ecstatic expression on his face that Buffy knew he'd put on just to annoy her. Then he stepped square in front of her, and gestured with the butt.

"Slayer. A word of warning, if I may."

His tone put her on alert. It wasn't like Spike to be so formal. Buffy put the emery board away and gave Spike her complete attention.

"Prophecy's a right bitch of a mistress, Buffy. Don't spend your life looking over your shoulder at her. Just live. Seen too many blinking fools lose everything. Not take chances, take chances they'd shouldn't have, all from thinking prophecy would take care of them."

Spike kicked at the crate she was on. It was killing him to say this to her, she thought. He'd felt more for her than she'd realized. Whether it was the chip, or how long he'd been around as a vampire, or something else, Spike wasn't typical.

"If you and the Watcher want the sprog, go have the sprog. Don't wait for prophecy to give it to you." Spike shook his head. "That's more than enough. Can't believe I said even that much."

Spike spun and was gone in a whirl of black coat tails.

"Drama queen," said Buffy, to the night air, but there was no rancor in it. She felt bad for Spike. She considered patrolling some more. She cast her awareness out into the night, seeking the undead. A quiet night. No vampires nearby, other than the rapidly-dwindling spark that was Spike. Home, then.

Rupert still up when she got back, sitting in the living room writing in his journal. He had his piles of books out on the coffee table. The rest of the house was quiet and dark. Buffy locked the front door behind herself, then went over to kiss him. His chin was raspy, but Buffy was besotted enough to enjoy it. It was still strange to her, when she stepped back from it: _I'm kissing Giles! He tastes good!_ But he did taste good, and feel good. Warm, solid, alive. He held a piece of her in his guardianship, and she could feel that support all the time now.

She pulled away and stuck his glasses back onto his nose.

"Dawn?"

"In bed. All homework done. She's really quite diligent. And her French accent is improving wonderfully with a bit of practice."

Rupert looked happy about that, and Buffy pouted at him. He'd once told her to stop speaking French in his presence lest his ears go on strike and overturn cars in the streets of Paris. He showed no signs of noticing however, but went into the kitchen, where the light was on.

"Hot chocolate?" he said, over his shoulder.

Buffy followed him into the kitchen, pout forgotten. "With little marshmallows?"

Rupert gave her a look. He'd been making hot drinks for her after patrol off and on for five years. He knew how she liked her tea as well as she knew how he liked his. He made her hot chocolate now the way he always had: milk, cream, cocoa, sugar, vanilla, and a dose of Watcher hand-stirring. His right hand was all wrapped up, but it seemed to be bothering him less.

"Hand better?"

"Tara did a working on it. Nudged it along. A simple healing."

"She okay?"

Rupert sighed. "No, I suspect not. At least not at the moment. She's deeply hurt, and I can't blame her."

He poured cocoa from the pan into a mug, then carried it over to her. He sat next to her at the kitchen island and watched her drink. He had a little smile on his face.

"What? What?"

The smile grew. "Just you. Thinking about you. And that vision. Of the two of us and, oh my, I can hardly say it. Our child." He laughed. "I never thought I would. I thought it was something I'd had to sacrifice, to be what I am."

Buffy nodded. Yet another thing they had in common. "When do you think it'll be?"

"Sometime quite soon, I thought. Not years away, anyway."

"Yeah, that was the feeling I got, too."

"Also, that whatever else was happening around us, that was a moment of pure peace. Just the three of us. I was nearly in tears, I think, to watch you."

"It was a weird feeling. My body was strange. But good. It felt good. Everything. The baby, you, all that sunshine." Something occurred to Buffy. "That doesn't happen here. That room isn't in this house. Not in Sunnydale at all."

"No, it didn't. Doesn't. Won't. Er."

"So... what? Do we pack so we can move?"

"No. Instead we're open to going elsewhere when the opportunity arises. Prophecy is strange, Buffy. We mustn't let ourselves focus on it to the exclusion of everything else around us."

"Spike said something like that tonight. Only with more swearing. Oh. And he said something else. He said you need to talk to Wesley. He's obsessed with kids and prophecies for some reason Spike wouldn't tell me. Something to do with Angel."

"Oh. Fascinating. There are prophecies I've read about the son of a vampire. I wonder-- I should ring Wesley."

Rupert scratched the back of his head and went into think mode. Buffy let him do it while she washed up the cocoa things and made sure the kitchen was shut up for the night. Rupert followed her upstairs, still distracted by whatever was going on in his head.

They were still in Buffy's room, with its too-small bed. They undressed for bed. Rupert had a routine which she'd already sussed out: pockets emptied, jewelry removed first. Then shoes and socks. Then pants. He put everything into the hamper as he took it off. No piles of dirty clothes bed-side for Rupert. He'd gotten as far as the trousers and his underwear. The blue tails of his oxford shirt went nearly all the way down his butt. He folded his trousers, and bent to lay them across the hamper. For a moment he mooned her. Buffy giggled.

"What?"

"Men. Are silly-looking. All that... stuff. Dangling."

Rupert made a chuffing noise, but didn't dignify that remark with a response. He occupied himself unbuttoning his shirt. He was using his right hand at least partially. Whatever Tara had done had sped things up greatly. He folded the shirt then put that into the hamper as well. He moved around her room nude, for the minute it took him to take his pajama bottoms out of his suitcase. He seriously needed a drawer. No. They seriously needed to move into the big bedroom, with the king-sized bed. Buffy would break the swap news to Tara tomorrow, as gently as she could.

Buffy marveled at the sight of her Watcher, naked and unworried about it, walking around her bedroom with his blue jammies in hand. It wasn't sexy or unsexy or anything like that. It was domestic, is what it was. It was the two of them u-turning in life. A week ago, he'd been in England and she'd been in a shellshocked haze. And now... blue stripy pajama bottoms, tie pulled tight and double-knotted by a slightly clumsy-handed Rupert, and her cute purple satin-ish nightie dropped over her head, her hair brushed out with a few quick strokes, and then watching somebody else brush their teeth in the bathroom while you moisturized.

Domesticity. This was good too, like running and fighting and being the Slayer had been good earlier. Like eating dinner had been good. Buffy got into bed between clean sheets, all made up tight, and decided to like that, too.

Rupert slipped into bed next to her and turned to put the light out. He turned on his side to face her, but didn't make any moves. Probably he was still too hurty.

"Hey," Buffy said.

"Mmm," he said. He kissed her, then settled himself back on his pillow.

"Rupert? Are you religious?"

He pulled back to study her face. "Not formally. Though I-- What brings this question to mind?"

"Something I was talking about with Spike." Buffy shook her head. "I was trying to figure out the rules of Heaven."

"No one knows how the Powers work."

"You believe in them, though."

"Believe is the wrong word. I know. As do you."

"Yeah. I kinda got the direct feed. But how do you know?"

"Angels walk among us too, Buffy. We are allowed to know it only rarely, but they do."

She looked at him steadily. "You met one."

He was gazing up at the ceiling, not looking at her. "Once."

His voice was odd, and Buffy decided not to press it. Later, she'd ask again.

He rolled over to face her. He rested his hand on her shoulder. "How are you doing, Buffy? Truly."

Buffy decided to go for honesty. "Mostly lots better. I have moments when it's, I dunno, like everything around me is all black and I feel like giving up."

"It's been said that when one is cut off from God, everywhere is hell. To be deprived of bliss, having tasted it." Buffy could hear him tiptoeing as he said it.

"Yeah, that's true. It was like that." She nestled up to him. "But it's not hell any more. That's the weird thing. Now, knowing He, They, what_ever_, want me here... it's different. I know I've got a job, a thing to do, and this time I know they appreciate it."

"Oh. That's... that's good."

"More than good. I've got you. Serious benefits."

Serious benefits, serious rewards, because what the Powers were asking them to do was serious stuff. She touched the ring on her left finger, the one that meant Rupert would marry her, that they would be allowed to have a kid. Allowed to live to see it grow up? Allowed to be happy with it? Who knew? Buffy went to sleep turning over the question of how to defeat a god.


End file.
